By Katy Schriner, intern, Pennsylvania Pro-Life Federation
Recently the West Coast took a stand to speak out at the 15th annual Walk for Life in San Francisco. EWTN Pro-Life Weekly broadcasted the walk, talking to many different people, including preachers, students, parents, speakers of the pro-life movement and the co-founder of the Walk for Life. The crowd ranged from locals, students and people who had traveled from different states to attend the walk. CBS local affiliate KPIX has estimated that there were about 50,000 people in the crowd.
Dolores Meehan and Eva Muntean, co-founders of the Walk for Life, were inspired to start a walk when both of them attended the March for Life in Washington D.C. in 2000. From 2004 to 2019, the walk has grown steadily, with numbers skyrocketing from 7,500 to 50,000 people attending this year. The motto at this year’s Walk for Life is “Abortions Hurt Women”. The goal that these two women set every year is to motivate people to get involved, spread the word of the pro-life movement out to the communities and to stay committed throughout the whole year. Besides discussions with the co-founders of the Walk for Life, there were other interviews being conducted with pro-life leaders before the rally including Tina Whittington, Executive Vice President for the Students for Life of America. She discusses with Catherine Hardo, anchor of EWTN, about their organization’s mission and goals. The Students for Life has 1,200 groups all across the country who work with high school and college campuses to start their own pro-life club. Their goal is to impact the high school or college campus towards life, bring resources to their campus for pregnant and parenting students, and to educate their peers on what abortion is.
As I mentioned, there were several speakers who spoke at the Walk for Life Rally who were very inspiring and touched so many hearts in the crowd in San Francisco. 40 Days for Life gave out their 40-44 Scholarship, to a college student whose mission is to end abortion and to spread the word for the future. Morgan English (sophomore student at the University of Florida) and Anna Green (junior student at the University of Idaho) were presented the $4,040 scholarship for their incredible work and dedication towards life. But the most important speaker in my view was Patricia Sandoval. She told her story about how she had three abortions, her experience working at Planned Parenthood and how she dug herself out of her darkness with her addiction to drugs and homelessness. During her speech, she emphasized that the abortionist never told her the truth about the full side effects of Post-Abortion Syndrome including anxiety, depression, the nightmares and suicidal thoughts. There was one specific part of her speech that I believe to be the most powerful and that was when she talked about her homelessness, drug addiction and how one day her life was changed. She discussed that she felt like she was a bum and described the type of dark place she was in. Until one day she decided to switch her life around, feeling God in her life for the first time and being able to speak about her experience with everyone especially women.
Stories like Patricia’s are ones that will touch your heart and make you realize how important the pro-life movement is. There were so many people at the walk ranging in age from little babies with their parents, to college students from Stanford University, to women in mid-life. One of the coolest events that happened was having women on stage and having the audience listen to the babies’ heartbeats on stage. While there are differences between the Walk for Life and the March for Life, the most important thing is that their missions are the same and will never change, and that will be to give the voiceless a voice and to keep fighting for life!